RESIDENTS DON’T WANT TURNBULL’S SECOND-RATE NBN

Posted by Emily Dowswell16sc on March 03, 2017

Federal Member for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon says many of his local Hunter constituents do not want the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Mr Fitzgibbon told the Parliament this week many residents are hearing of the horrors being experienced by friends and family who have Malcolm Turnbull’s fibre-to-the-node NBN and are either having “drop-out” problems with both the internet and their land lines, or find the new system slower than their old ADSL2 service.

“We know only too well about the digital divide between our capital cities and those of us who live in rural and regional Australia. There is a very significant divide of disadvantage in the regions,” Mr Fitzgibbon told the Parliament.

“In my own electorate, we also have a digital divide locally. The divide between those who have the Prime Minister's inferior fibre-to-the-node NBN and those who fear now getting fibre-to-the-node NBN.

“Those who have it in my electorate, particularly those living around the western side of Lake Macquarie, hate it. It is slower than their old ADSL2 service, but worse, it keeps dropping out. Worse again, their landlines keep dropping out.”

Mr Fitzgibbon highlighted the significant NBN downfalls through the case of a constituent who lives in Edgeworth who has been in touch with his office in an effort to solve ongoing issues with his NBN and landline connection.

“Take Barney from Edgeworth. I will only use his first name. On a daily basis Barney loses his landline. He talks to my office about how frustrating it is to attempt to talk to Telstra about the problem. He does not have any criticism of the staff at Telstra, but it is clear to Barney that they are just not capable of fixing his problem because of this hopeless NBN introduced and given to us by this Prime Minister,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.